ABSTRACT
IN Bk VII Pliny gives his opinion that it did not seem enough for Nature to have brought man into the world frailer than all the other animals, full of distresses and tears, and subject to innumerable calamities. 2 Man had himself to find out even more cruel expedients for shortening his already brief life, and this accords with the customs of nations scattered over the whole world. For the Scythians fight in one way, Africans in another, and Indians in yet another, employing different weapons furnished either by corrupt human nature or by frenzy.
